


gravitas

by ewagan



Category: Fire Emblem: If | Fire Emblem: Fates
Genre: Canonical Character Death, Character Study, Gen, Hoshido | Birthright Route, Post-Canon, Post-Fire Emblem Fates: Birthright
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-28
Updated: 2018-12-28
Packaged: 2019-09-29 06:15:04
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,030
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17198063
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ewagan/pseuds/ewagan
Summary: A kingdom, a crown, a sword. How heavy they all are in his hands, will be on his shoulders.





	gravitas

**Author's Note:**

> to quote meg "your brave, strong, resilient tomatoes." me, wailing through my tears as i wrote this: my tomatoes ;;;;;;;;;
> 
> ty meg always for wailing with me about tomatoes and subsequently enabling me into writing this monster of a fic ABSOLUTELY NO ONE NEEDED

The castle is so quiet now.

It was quiet before, but he was always expecting to hear Elise's excited exclamations at any point, even through the thick doors of the library. She always knew how to make herself noticed, whether it was by way of bringing him a biscuit in the middle of the afternoon or simply by the sound of her laughter, ringing through the empty hallways of the castle.

Now it is silent, deathly so. It feels like the life has gone out of Castle Krakenburg, and Leo can feel a chill creeping in. Castle Krakenburg had never been warm or welcoming to begin with, but it had always been home of some sorts, the makeshift kind cobbled together through persistence and determination, long hours in the library with Xander, sitting in the kitchen with Elise, or out in the garden with Camilla.

It doesn’t feel that way anymore.

 

* * *

 

When Leo first learned how to use Brynhildr, he learned the laws governing gravity and weight. He knows how much Elise weighs, with and without all those fussy skirts and dresses she likes to wear. He knows how heavy Camilla’s axes are, how her armour is lighter than Xander’s but just as tough. He knows how much armour Xander wears, how much lighter Xander is without it. He learned all these things to become better, because part of learning to use Brynhildr was to learn control, and you cannot learn control without knowing what it is you are trying to control.

Leo knows how much force to exert if he wants to break every bone in a man's body, how to slow a fall. He knows how to raise trees from nothing and how to call wind and fire and thunder. He knows older magic, darker magic he rarely uses, how to channel magic through a weapon. He knows how to isolate, to pinpoint his magic just so, make it do what he wants.

But for all the magic he knows, nothing weighed heavier than Elise's limp hand in his, the silence of the great hall as he moved Xander's body. If he pretends hard enough, they could just be asleep. If he ignores the gaping wound in Elise, the slow seeping of blood from Xander, it's fine, he can do something about this.

He can't do anything about this.

 

* * *

 

The law of gravity is this— that everything is attracted by a force that is proportional to its mass, and inversely proportional to the distance between it. If distance could dictate how much he loved someone, then surely now he must love Xander and Elise even more, love them with all the force of a storm that can blow across the realms.

He makes arrangements for the funerals, sits through the services with a face like stone while Camilla weeps beside him, silent tears that won't stop.

It still doesn't feel real even as the stone slab slides into place, sealing the tombs. It doesn't feel like they have lost most all their family now, save each other. He knows all of these as facts, but it doesn't feel real.

He doesn't know how they will move forward from here, but they must. The kingdom will not stop for their grief, and if Camilla cannot, then he must. He will run the kingdom, he will give Camilla the time she needs to pull herself together, he will keep moving forwards.

He will do what none of them can.

 

* * *

 

Odin gives him the letter, the one with his name in Xander’s careful lettering. Laslow had given it to him, he says. He looks like there’s something more he wants to say, but then he shakes his head and withdraws, leaving Leo alone at his desk.

The temptation to fling it into the fire is overwhelming, because Leo knows Xander. He knows that Xander must have thought about this, must have planned this. He doesn’t want to open it to see what Xander had to say, to read apologies for things that cannot be changed. He doesn’t want an apology, he doesn’t want platitudes and condescension. He doesn’t want to think about this, about the way Xander must have known for weeks now, planned how the encounter would go.

Xander had always been dutiful, and duty had always cost them so much, chipping slowly away at them as they tried to shield Elise and Corrin from the worst of it. Now it’s only them left standing, he and Camilla in a space that aches with absence.

He’s not sure what to do now, without Xander to stand in front of them and guide them, without Elise to fill their silences with laughter, without Corrin’s warmth to be the heart of them.

 

* * *

 

Camilla’s tucked into the alcove by the window when he cracks the door to her suite open. Her smile is warm, but it’s unsteady and wobbly before she looks away again, staring out the window.

There’s nothing out there; Leo can barely make anything out in the darkness. Even the stars are absent, it feels. Instead, he folds himself into the other end of the alcove, all long limbs and awkward positioning where he used to fit neatly. His legs tangle with Camilla’s and they sit like that, a point of connection to ground them. Elise used to fit in that space, leaning against Camilla’s knees while Camilla braided her hair, sticking her cold toes under Leo’s knees.

“I don’t want to be queen,” she says suddenly. Leo’s not sure he’s heard her right, or if he imagined it. She’s still staring out the window, and he can’t make out her face. She turns to him, face pale. Leo suddenly realises her feet are terribly, terribly cold, like she’s been sitting here for hours now, like the stone walls of the castle have sucked the warmth out of her. She leans over and takes his hands in hers, and Leo feels so, so very cold.

“Leo, I’m going to abdicate.” Her hands are also cold in his, and he’s rubbing circles with his thumbs, trying to press his warmth into her, make her something alive again. They’ve been managing somehow, between the two of them. Leo doesn’t know how Xander managed to get so much done in a day, but he’s not sure he can do it on his own.

“I can’t do it, Leo.” The words are barely above a whisper.

Camilla has never been fragile or breakable, but she looks like she is shattering now, here, in front of him. He has never known her to cry, and she doesn’t even now. But her hands are limp in his, and Leo feels like she’s slipping out of his grasp, like everything else has.

He'll do it then. He has to.

 

* * *

 

Siegfried weighs heavy in his hands, and Leo wonders how Xander had ever lifted it. But then, Xander had carried so many things and never faltered. Leo’s watched him do it for so many years now, admiring his eldest brother, wanting to be like him.

The sword has never been Leo's weapon of choice, especially not when he'd felt so overshadowed by Xander, but it is easy enough to take up a basic stance, to let muscle memory guide him as he goes through one of the first drills he’d ever learned from watching Xander.

The weight of it is so real in his hands, tangible in ways that Xander isn't anymore. Siegfried seems to get lighter and easier to wield as he adjusts to it, like an extension of his arm the way he knows a good sword is supposed to be. It slices through the air cleanly, the swings heavy enough to become devastating blows. He goes through one drill then another, until he’s gone through all the drills he can remember and he’s sweating, standing in the training yard alone long after the entire castle has gone to bed.

Siegfried never used to be his, but like so many things that were never meant to be his, it belongs to him now. A kingdom, a crown, a sword. How heavy they all are in his hands, will be on his shoulders.

 

* * *

 

Camilla looks every inch a queen when she tells the council she will be abdicating in favour of him. There are some protests, but Camilla plows through them like she would with her axe on a battlefield. Leo thinks she would have made a very good queen, but then no one could ever tell Camilla what to do. She stares all of them down, soft-spoken and steely as she makes her point. She will help Leo, but it is Leo who will be king.

Later, she’s shaking as she clings to him, subtle tremors he can feel as he wraps his arms around her.

When did he grow taller than Camilla? It feels like one of those things that has slipped through his fingers, like so many things now. His big sister, always above him, always filling a room with her presence.

She seems so diminished now, from the way he thinks of her. But she is still stronger than she looks, she has always been. He clings to her like he hasn't since he was a child, when she would be the one he ran to. How different things are now, compared to those days.

“We’ll be fine,” he tells Camilla. Fine. It sounds so useless to say it, but if he says it enough, then they’ll be fine. Everything will be fine. It has to be.

They are all the family they have now.

 

* * *

 

Hoshido is so different from Nohr. The trees here grow straight and tall, their branches reaching upwards and outwards, the ground littered with leaves. Corrin is there to greet them, all brilliant smiles and eager hugs. He looks well, sunshine framing his smile and soaking into his skin, making it warm like it had never been in the damp of the Northern Fortress.

Leo’s not sure if he resents Corrin’s happiness or not. They always agreed that Corrin deserved better, that they would love to see Corrin really happy. He looks happy here, bare feet in the grass, warm wind teasing his hair. 

But he’d never imagined Corrin’s happiness would have cost them so much, that it would come at this price.

“I missed you so much,” Corrin says, his hands curled around Leo’s and Camilla’s tightly. For a split second, his smile wobbles and Leo’s reminded that Corrin had loved Xander and Elise too, that he must be hurting more than he lets on. He had never been one to let them see how much pain he was in, even though Leo knows it must hurt him as deeply as it hurts them, if not more.

Leo knows something about hard choices, about making choices you shouldn’t have to make. About choices that are not choices, shouldering guilt and regret and forging onwards. They all sheltered Corrin, then pushed him to make difficult choices. There was no right choice, and Leo knows Xander must have forced Corrin’s hand, that this was the price of war.

It doesn’t make his own pain any easier to bear.

 

* * *

 

The laws of physics are this— that something in motion will remain in motion unless acted upon by an external force.

He wonders if it is so with events as well, that once they are set in motion, they must run their course unless stopped by an external force. When Corrin left the Northern Fortress, something changed. None of them would have predicted this course of events, or even dreamt of it.

Leo believed in love and loyalty, in trust and family. He never thought that Corrin would have given him up, given _them_ up. Simply because it is not something Leo would have ever done, because he knows how it feels like to nearly die at the hands of someone you were supposed to call _brother_. Somehow, it was worse when you actually cared about the person who lifted their sword at you.

He meant it when he said called Corrin _traitor_ , even if he had hurt about it. Maybe he still hoped that Corrin would come back, but Leo has lived through betrayal and loss before.

It just never hurt so much before.

 

* * *

 

Ryouma’s coronation is followed by weeks of negotiations and meetings, two countries trying to overcome a war that has taken too much.

There is no use for swords in peacetime, except that this is not peace, only a mockery of it. Tensions at the borders are high, as if they are waiting for another war to break out. Leo goes himself, leaving Camilla to manage the upcoming coronation and the crusty old men who seem to prefer arguing over getting things done. They listen to her in a way they don't with him, and Leo is so tired of being in Windmire.

He keeps looking up and expecting Xander to stride in and ask him what he was reading today, or for Elise to show up in the library with her pockets full of sweets, or even those cherry tomatoes he was especially fond of. He wants Camilla to laugh again, to smile and not look so sad. He'd even take one of her suffocating hugs, if it meant she would smile like she used to.

Maybe it is grief, he thinks, when he looks around and only feels the loss of it, the sinking realisation that Xander would never knock on his door before bed anymore, that Elise would never barge in without invitation but with some silly story and laughter. The knowledge that now he will have to do without, and there was no coming back from it.

But even at the border, he keeps seeing things that remind him of them. He learns that the capacity of the human heart to hold grief is stunning. He goes about his duties, meeting after meeting, drafting and redrafting laws, policies, agreements. He goes through Xander’s documents, trying to pick up the things Xander had left behind. He wants something more tangible than musty papers and the careful script of Xander's hand, the flickering of another candle as he sits up late reading and reading, the querying nicker of Elise's mare every time he goes to the stables.

Sometimes he wonders what Xander would make of him now, trying to put everything together in a way that makes sense, when nothing really does. Everything feels like it is barely holding together at the seams, and Leo cannot be three people at once, cannot fill all these absences left behind by Xander and Elise, even Corrin.

Sometimes he wonders if he can bring Xander back, force life into him, will him to be back here again. He knows this magic, has known it for years now, humming under his hands, through his bones. It is not so difficult to imagine, to think of the motions of doing it.

He wonders if he could bring Elise back too, but he can almost hear her whine, the sharp hike in pitch and the way she would say his name. _Leo, you can't!_

But he could.

He could.

 

* * *

 

Make it grow. Tear the life from the unwilling earth, give it shape, give it form. Make it something, with roots that will burrow deep, branches that will stretch out and reach for the sky. He can feel the magic in his veins, the way it tears out of him and becomes tangible in the budding of leaves, the sudden sweetness of flowers in bloom.

He still remembers the first time he mastered this, how wide Elise's eyes had been when he'd brought the lilies to bloom, her wobbly lip when he couldn't sustain the magic and they wilted. She had always loved lily of the valley so much, the smell of it, dried and pressed between the leaves of her journal.

Now he can hold the spell, but Elise isn't here to see it. But he holds it anyways, a field of flowers for a sister he should have loved better, blooming out of season. Hold it, until the magic takes root, until it stops being magic and becomes something real.

A field of flowers in barren Nohr, that will bloom, that will keep blooming.

Do what no one else can.

 

* * *

 

The thing about this is— 

Leo was never supposed to be king. Leo, little brother, younger brother. Leo, brilliant and clever, but still not Xander. Leo, the youngest prince, not meant to be king.

But Xander is not here, and Camilla—

Well, they all have their own ways of grieving. They are all still grieving.

The difference is, Leo doesn’t have time to grieve. An object in motion will not stop unless an external force acts upon it. He has to keep moving on, moving forwards.

The doors of the great hall swing open and he takes one step forward, and another, until he stands before the throne, kneels before it for the last time.

He will do what no one else can. It is all that he can do now, is it not?

 

* * *

 

Camilla’s smile is proud, indulgent from across the room when he enters. Corrin is with the Hoshidan delegation, smiling and still looking like he doesn’t quite belong, much as the rest of them cluster around him.

He lights up when he sees Leo, darting through the mass of people before Leo can even start walking towards him. He is warm and he smells like sunlight, like brightness as he hugs Leo tightly, uncaring of appearances and protocol.

“You’re gonna do great,” he whispers, and Leo feels himself tremble just a little as he hugs Corrin back.

He misses Corrin more than he cares to admit sometimes, and that Corrin can still believe in him so unwaveringly despite how unsteady Leo has been towards him over the last few months is only proof that some things run deeper than blood, than loss. 

All of this is the result of the choices that were made—by himself, by Corrin, Xander, Camilla, even sweet Elise. They must now keep walking forwards, and he will stop hurting every time he sees Corrin.

“I’m glad you’re here,” he says, and means it.

 

* * *

 

The crown weighs heavy, almost oppressive in the way it curves around his head, pressing in. He’s never worn something like this the way Camilla and Xander had, with all the grace and decorum befitting the eldest of the royal siblings.

The letter on his desk remains unopened still, the edges soft from handling and worrying. He picks it up turns it over, looks at the seal that is still unbroken, the curling vine that was Xander’s emblem, the one he used for personal correspondence. 

He wonders what Camilla has done with hers, if she has read it. He wonders what happened to Elise’s, if Laslow had consigned it to the fire. He wonders where Corrin’s is, if it ever reached Corrin.

He still can't bring himself to open it, to read it. He can almost picture Xander writing and rewriting the letter, because what can you say when you have decided to die?

There are not enough apologies for this, especially not in Xander's careful hand. He had always loved writing letters, and Leo cannot bear to read the last one.

There's nothing Xander can say to make any of this better, when all Leo wants sometimes is just for him to be _here_. Xander would know what to do about the current tensions, he would be able to stop the unrest just by being there. He’d be able to talk those crusty old men and women on the council around to his policies, he wouldn’t have to deal with the hushed whispers and sullen looks whenever he rode through the streets of Windmire. 

Leo doesn't have to be liked. Being a king did not mean being liked. As long as people respected him and would obey, that was enough. Elise had been the one everyone adored, Xander the one everyone admired. Camilla was respected and loved and feared in equal measure, but Leo— 

Leo has never been the people's, not in that way. He won't try to be now.

He’ll push out the policies that he and Xander used to discuss during late nights, both of them dreaming up a kingdom where there was peace. Trade agreements, peace treaties, reparations, creating new laws in place of the old. The treasury is stretched, but he'll have to make it work somehow. He is good at this, he reminds himself. Xander had always relied on him to make a way when there wasn't one.

It will be like when he first started using Brynhildr. It will be slow, painful, and difficult. But he will persevere, until Nohr blooms under his hands, the way he had learned to make the trees bloom.

Isolate, conquer. Solve all these problems before him, take the broken pieces and rebuild a kingdom. Restructure, reframe. 

There is always a way to make it work somehow.

 

* * *

 

You cannot be in motion and not moving forwards, he tells himself. But as the days pass and preparations for the winter festival begin, he wonders. Camilla throws herself into festival preparations with a kind of vengeance he hasn’t seen in a long time, like she’s trying to fill up the empty spaces with other people’s cheer and laughter. It’s better than her absences and quietness, and it makes him glad to see her up and about. She brings him spiced wine in the evening, asks him about things and listens to him talk, offering her opinions on the new laws he’s drawing up.

She doesn’t say she’s worried about him, but he knows she must be. Her hand rests on his, and before she leaves, she pushes his hair back and kisses his forehead, like he’s still a child who needs her to mother him, to be the mother he never had. He is not a king here, just her baby brother.

“I love you,” she whispers. She is so lovely, his elder sister. Despite the grief, despite their losses. They’re still here, they’re moving forward, a little by little. He catches her hand in his and squeezes it hard, the way he used to when he needed her reassurance. She just smiles at him and squeezes back, a childhood promise that tells him that she’s here, she’s still here, that she will be here for him.

 

* * *

 

The letter is just a letter, in the end. It has his name on it, Xander’s concern tucked into its folds, his pride etched in ink, his apologies and his regrets laid out in words. Leo reads it again and again, then he folds the pages and puts it back in its envelope. It’s almost dawn now, and he’s been sitting in the cathedral since the night before.

Leo remembers a time before Corrin, when the four of them would stay in the cathedral after the solstice service. Elise falling asleep before the service had ended, Camilla asking him if he wanted a hot drink, and Xander writing after the service was over. _Reflecting,_ he told Leo, when Leo had leaned over to see what he was writing. Camilla had asked what he was grateful for that year, and Leo remembers learning from her how to be grateful for the smallest things.

He hadn't understood it then, but this year he sat alone like it was some kind of vigil, counting his gains and losses with each candle that burned down. Reflecting, like Xander used to. Finding gratitude, like Camilla taught him. He knows he’s always been bad at letting go of the people he cares about, because he knows how difficult it is to find people to love and trust.

Breathe in, breathe out. Slowly let them go, let them dissipate with his breath in the cold cathedral. 

He sits there and waits, watching until there is sunlight slanting through the stained glass windows of the cathedral, scattering coloured light everywhere.

He has survived the longest night now, he will be fine.

**Author's Note:**

> Kudos and comments are always deeply appreciated! You can find me on [twitter](https://twitter.com/ewagan) probably still wailing about tomatoes.


End file.
